Monday, July 5, 2010

Below are excerpts from the Vision document I wrote (on another sleepless night) some time ago.
What I realized tonight, is that living the vision is not beyond any in our fellowship. Bonnie lives this vision more than I, but I thought I might provide some examples:
Bonnie for weeks cooked meals almost daily for friends with serious medical issues.
She and I are going to a friend who suffered an accident so that she can help plan and execute what is needed to facilitate our friend's daughter's wedding coming up at the end of July.
We participated with others on our block in a homecoming celebration for a soldier returning from Afghanistan.
After church I was able to pray with a brother obviously in deep depression.
Frequently, after-church interventions are embodiments of loving and serving each other, and loving and obeying God.
We have frequently been the recipients of this same love and care from the body. During our lowest moments financially (and emotionally), people brought us food (sometimes, seemingly out of the blue), gave us gift cards, and helped financially. I can't tell you how much that has meant to us both.

I feel these are all examples of what it means to be a Christian Community. These are the kind of things that are going on all over the church, but I think we can do a far better job. Even well connected people often feel alone in their troubles and pain. Too often we wait for disaster before we reach out. We need to encourage people to listen to the Spirit of God inside them prompting them to reach out. Many times, this kind of reaching out just requires some of our time to listen and pray with each other.

I think we need to keep asking ourselves: What is God prompting us to do? When I shared with Eric my concern for someone in the fellowship, he rightly pointed out that if God had put that concern on my heart, it was probably for me to do something about it.

My vision for the fellowship is to be a people who hears God and acts in love and obedience to Him to love and serve others.

Personal Vision


Or, I should say, Vision for Each Person.

a) We must love God and worship him above all else corporately and individually.

b) The fellowship of believers should be a family that loves each other. As in a family, we should feel at the same time both safe and challenged: safe to share our fears, joys, thoughts, and gifts in an atmosphere of love, and challenged to grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ. As a responsible member of the family we must listen, love, support, and encourage, as well as (at the direction of the Spirit), admonish or even rebuke each other.

This love within the fellowship enables love beyond the community of believers to all for whom Christ has died. From the safety of the fellowship, we are empowered to love those around us in our communities and workplace (even on the highway). We live the love of Christ.

c) We should serve one another. We should live lives of willing service looking for opportunities to meet the needs of others, first in the fellowship of believers (including our own families), then in the community.

d) We should grow in the knowledge of our Lord so that we might bear fruit through his power and in his name.

e) We should use our gifts to edify the body and to bear witness of Christ to the world. Here, I use gifts in a broad sense to include all the gifts of the Spirit and talents granted by God. As a fellowship, we should educate and encourage using our gifts to glorify God.

1. Those who sing or dance or play an instrument or deliver a line or reading should do so to the glory of God. Such talents are given to help us worship and glorify God. People with such gifts lead us in worship by letting us partner with them as they meet God and give their talents as an offering to him.

2. Those given a Word of prophesy, wisdom, exhortation, or knowledge or a gift of discernment must share, first with the Elders and then with the fellowship.

3. Those given a gift of healing, tongues, or interpretation must share with the fellowship.

I Corinthians 12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

4. All are called to testify of God’s work and glory, first to the fellowship, then to the community.

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